Zane Statz is becoming something of an unofficial artist for the Green Bay Packers.

The beloved football team itself hasn't directly commissioned any works from the Sturgeon Bay native and freelance graphic designer. But during this Super Bowl week, he's putting the finishing touches on his third prominent Packers-themed project of the football season — and one which might reach a worldwide audience before Sunday's NFL championship extravaganza.

"I don't mind that title at all," the devoted Packers fan said. "Professionally it's been great having this many projects in such a short period of time, and especially involving the Packers industry. Definitely it's an honor and a labor of love. If it was the Vikings, there wouldn't be as much joy."

Statz, 24, and his ZAS Designs business gained notice last fall when he and an artist friend, fellow St. Norbert College alum Spencer Young, painted two sprawling, traffic-stopping fence murals — each measuring about 70 feet long and six feet high — on Lombardi Avenue in the shadow of Lambeau Field. The publicity helped him land his latest job: custom-create a design upon a gold-colored and otherwise unadorned football helmet that will be auctioned off for charity.

WFRV-TV, the CBS station in Green Bay, hired him for the unconventional paint job two weeks ago. CBS is airing the golden-anniversary Super Bowl 50 Sunday from San Francisco and, as a promotional gesture, booked "helmet artists" in all 32 NFL cities via its local affiliates.

Statz works full-time as a graphic designer and website developer for the Green Bay ad agency Insight Creative.

As with one of the two Packers murals, Statz volunteered for the CBS project as a way to build word-of-mouth, asking only for enough to cover supplies and materials. A CBS national crew filmed him at work, so Statz said he might appear on Super Bowl pregame programming or on network news leading up to the game.

"It's a portfolio-builder, a great opportunity to get my name out there to an even larger market or a bigger ad agency if I were to choose to do that," Statz said.

Starr salute

Statz is the son of Dennis and Bonnie Statz, owners of Sturgeon Bay's White Lace Inn bed-and-breakfast and instrumental in furthering the surrounding historic district of Victorian-style homes. The younger Statz swam the 200- and 500-yard freestyle for the Sturgeon Bay Clippers swim team and also played soccer and golf.

The completed helmet will be a salute, in more ways than one, to "Glory Years" Packers quarterback Bart Starr, the MVP of Super Bowls I and II. Besides displaying two portraits of Starr, WFRV chose Starr's prized cause — the Rawhide Boys Ranch near New London — as the charity of choice for the helmet proceeds.

Starr has been an endorser and financial backer of Rawhide, an innovative group home for troubled young men, for about 40 years. The ranch's best-known program is one that puts the boys to productive work restoring and repairing donated motor vehicles for resale.

Starting with the somewhat foreign blank canvas of the metal helmet, Statz drew a pair of Starr portraits on either side augmented by four silver stripes down the middle (representing the Packers' quartet of Super Bowl victories) and, on the back, the dates "Jan. 5, 1967" and "Feb. 7, 2016" (the first and upcoming 50th editions of the big game). He stayed true to a football focus, unlike artists in some other cities who employed local basketball or hockey heroes in their creations.

"One (portrait) is an action shot of (Starr) passing, a full side-body profile," Statz said. "The other is more of a formal bust of his face and upper chest, with the tips of his '15' (uniform number) and all the shadows and creases of his face.

"I've never painted directly on a helmet before. One of the things that's most challenging is there's no way to hold onto it and still paint. I put different weights behind it to keep it in place, because I was putting pressure on it with the brush. Painting on a curved surface is challenging. Paint doesn't apply the same as on a canvas."

With a two-week window and a deadline of Wednesday, Statz used faster-drying acrylic paint because an oil-based mixture would need the full 14 days to cure without risking smudges.

But that also meant blemishes and mistakes couldn't simply be erased with paint thinner, which works far better on oil. Instead, Statz said he scraped away his few minor "screwups" with a plastic brush that wouldn't scratch the surface.

"I'm about 75 or 80 percent done," Statz said Monday. "There's just a little detail work left on (Starr's) faces to make the portraits as realistic as possible. There'll be some late-night painting (Monday and Tuesday) because, yes, I still have a day job."

Rawhide staff contacted Bart's wife, Cherry Starr, in Birmingham, Ala., so the couple could sign off on his portrayal.

"It was more of a courtesy than a legal (requirement), to make sure none of it would be unflattering," Statz said. "We just wanted to keep them in the loop. There's a slight chance we might be able to get it to him to sign, so it would increase the (auction) value."

‘Mad kool’

With his helmet added to the two Lombardi Avenue murals, Statz has a veritable mini-Packers exhibit in the making.

The first painted fence belongs to a New York resident who owns a home along the walk to Lambeau. The man hastily hired Statz and Young after his first artist backed out, so they worked from sunup to sundown Saturday, Sept. 19, to finish it before the Packers' 2015 home opener the following day.

The mural, against a Packers canary-yellow background, imagines running back Eddie Lacy as the pumped-up Incredible Hulk character, grasping for the Lombardi Trophy like he would a handoff. In a cartoon text bubble, "Lacy" utters The Hulk's catchphrase: "You won't like me when I'm angry!"

Upon seeing the mural, Lacy tweeted to his 274,000 followers: "This mad kool." The artists later met the Packer briefly at a luncheon in a Lambeau Field skybox. They were one of 10 winners — plus guests — of a Campbell's Chunky Soup contest with the essay theme: "Tell us why you should meet Eddie Lacy."

Then, in November, Statz and Young did an encore nine doors down on the fence of the homeowner's "man cave and party house." Painted mostly Packers forest-green, the second mural honors the team's four championship eras with portraits of eight greats from Curly Lambeau to Aaron Rodgers.

The artists assembled the piece on 6-by-4 panels inside a Cherryland Airport hangar belonging to the family of Statz's fiancee, Ana Collins. They expected the elements to be more of a challenge than in September but were surprised by a mild late autumn.

"We had a lot of nice days around that time and actually had the hangar doors open for a few of them," Statz said. "But we had to (start) it indoors, because rain would have been a disaster."

With the limitless reach of the Internet, Statz is also making a name for himself in, of all places, the rap and hip-hop worlds. He's designed decals on a line of custom skateboards for California rapper Hoodie Allen; and a tour poster for West Coast hip-hop group Radical Something.

But they might have to wait in line if football business comes calling again.